there were several reasons. Barclay knew from a brief note that
Cavendish had taken a small room in a boarding-house, not far from the
"Rockingham," and that the pressure of his work for the "Sentinel" set
him afoot so early, and sent him home at night so brain and body weary,
that he had neither the strength nor the inclination for other things.
Added to this, had been the Lieutenant-Governor's absorption in his own
duties, and, in particular, his absence from Kenton City, on his round
of inspection of the state militia. But, just before the dinner hour, on
the evening following that of the review, Cavendish called, as Barclay
was in the act of dressing.
"I had a suspicion I'd catch you just about this time," he said,
dragging a chair to the door of the bedroom, where he could watch the
Lieutenant-Governor struggling with a refractory white tie. "I'm getting
on famously, and I wanted you to know it."
"That's right!" said Barclay, scowling into the mirror. "But then, I
knew you would. Your pessimism didn't produce much effect on me. I've
heard men talk like that before. And, of course, when a chap gets into
the condition you were in, back there, there's no such thing as making
him believe he can ever pull out. You talked like an ass, that first
night, Spencer."
"And acted like a blackguard! I suppose you will allow me to refer to
that now?"
"Now less than ever, my good sir. As I've told you already, all that
belongs to the past. You're yourself again. What's the use of dwelling
on a time gone by, when you were in reality somebody else--or, rather,
nobody at all? When are you going to call at the Rathbawnes'? The old
man is pretty ill, I'm afraid, but I think the rest would like to see
you again. They were speaking of you only the other day--that is, one of
them was!"
"Not till this strike trouble is over, at all events; they have all they
can attend to at present, without being bothered by reformed drunkards.
And perhaps I sha'n't call at all. I haven't decided yet what would be
best."
Then, before Barclay had time to speak, he added:--
"By the way, I'm to take up the strike to-morrow, for the 'Sentinel.'"
"Are you?" exclaimed the Lieutenant-Governor, in a tone of the liveliest
interest. "That's good news. It must be about the most important
assignment they could give you, just now. Well, I wonder if you are
destined to be the only conscientious reporter in Kenton City, or
whether you will simply be like all the rest. Are you going to have the
courage of your convictions--which I think I can surmise, though you
haven't as yet confided them to me--or are you going to wear the
slave-chains of your fellows, and distort, and misrepresent, and truckle
and kow-tow to the policy of the most venal press in America?"
"_On fait ce qu'on peut_," said Cavendish, with a shrug. "Orders are
orders, John. If the orders of the editor don't go, the orders on the
cashier don't come. That's about all there is to it. It would be rather
futile to attempt the Don Quixote act, if only for the reason that one
would never get into print. One can't do more than follow instructions.
The reporter's best policy is his paper's best honesty."
"Honesty?" repeated the Lieutenant-Governor. "Where does the honesty
come in? Of course I understand your position. In a way, it is identical
with mine--subservience to a principle that you despise, acquiescence in
methods that you know to be utterly false and wrong! How sick I am of it
all! It's the old experience, all over again, which I used to have as a
child with the Tom Smith paper crackers. You are fascinated by the
tinsel, and the colored paper, and the gaudy label. You think that when
you've dissected one, and pulled it all to pieces, you'll find a bugle
and a gold crown inside--because that's what it says on the box. But,
the first thing you know, you'll find yourself blowing on a tin whistle
and wearing a fool's cap of green paper! Lord! how the press of Kenton
City needs a _man_--a man with the courage and the power to show up the
scoundrels who are responsible for all this--McGrath and his associates,
I mean. I'm sick and tired of reporters whose rascality is self-evident,
of editors who are bought and sold like chattels, of a state of affairs,
in general, so infamous as to surpass expression! You have my sympathy,
Spencer--the sympathy of a fellow-victim. To be a reporter on a
newspaper which dictates dishonesty; to be the lieutenant of a Governor
who enjoins duplicity--it's all just about one and the same thing!"
"It's curious," commented Cavendish, "that it wasn't until about a week
after--after that night, that I knew you were Lieutenant-Governor. Then,
your name happened to be mentioned in the office, and somebody asked me
if I knew you."
"Whereupon," said Barclay, conquering the tie at last, and turning from
the mirror, "you had the inexpressible privilege of saying that you knew
me intimately."
"Whereupon," repeated Cavendish, in that so singular tone which had lain
heavy upon the other's memory, "I had the inexpressible privilege of
saying that I used to know you, but that we had quarreled, and were
now--strangers."
"Why?" demanded the Lieutenant-Governor, wheeling abruptly upon him.
"What possessed you to say such a silly thing as that?"
Cavendish leaned forward in his chair, with his elbows on his knees, and
his forehead against his interlaced fingers, staring at the floor.
"I'm glad, in a way, to have you ask that question," he said slowly. "We
are wary of mock heroics, or even real heroics, men like you and me. And
yet there are things which must be explained, things not easy to
explain, because they come so close at times to melodrama. I've always
had a horror of emotional situations; and, from what I know of you, I'm
sure you have, as well. I'd avoid this explanation, if I could--indeed,
I've deliberately avoided it, thus far. Yet if I were a Romanist in the
presence of my priest, I think I should feel more at liberty to evade
confession than I do now. For both our sakes, I'll try to be as brief,
as simple, as lucid, as I can. And I'll trust you to understand, as well
as may be. Don't think there's any pose, any aim at effect, in what I'm
going to say. You've asked me a question, and I'm going to answer it,
that's all! I don't think, in my present frame of mind, I could bear to
have you entertain the suspicion that the answer was affected or lacking
in candor. _Allons!_ Already I'm growing too verbose!"
He looked up with a wan smile.
"Let's get down to facts. You ask me why I told my questioner that we no
longer knew each other. Well, then, let's have at it! It was because,
John Barclay, there is likely--no, there is sure--to come a time when
you won't care to acknowledge me as your friend. Oh, wait!" he added, as
the Lieutenant-Governor held up his hand in protest. "Hear me out. You
say I talked like an ass, that first night. Perhaps. But the fact
remains that I've been a drunkard--and that I'm bound to be one again!
I've been fighting against temptation for several weeks. It hasn't been
very strong, for some reason, and so I've managed to ground it so far.
But you remember the chap with whom old Hercules wrestled? Every time he
touched earth his strength was multiplied. Well, that's the way with
drink. I can throw the temptation for a while, but every time I do so it
rises, stronger many-fold. Sooner or later, I'm forced to give in. I
know it, as I know I'm sitting here. I'm doing my best now, because, in
the future, when the wrong that for a time you've righted goes wrong
again, I want you to remember that I made the effort--for you--and for
her--for the Fairy Princess. The end is as plain as day! It was born in
me, this. I think I've never told you that my father died of it, but
that's the truth. And the next time I drop, it will be for good and all.
I shall never make another effort to conquer the inevitable. If I can't
do it now, with the hope of redemption thus made plain, with a new
start, and a fresh chance, and--thanks to you, John--the past wiped off
the slate and a new sum set to solve, with the incentive of your
friendship and confidence, and the interest, so undeserved, of the Fairy
Princess, into the bargain,--if I can't do it now, I say, why surely I
can never do it. John, you can't know what I've been through. You,
who've never had the temptation, can't conceive of what it means. It's a
living actuality, this lust for drink. When your nerves go wrong, even
at the end of a day, or a week, or a year, during which you've kept
straight, when you're tired, discouraged, and, above all, _alone_!--then
it comes at you like a live thing,--speaks--grips your arm--drags you
wherever it wills! I've laughed at it, scoffed at it, in its absence,
tried to make myself believe it a fragment of an otherwise forgotten
dream, many and many and many a time. _But it always came back!_ Oh,
John Barclay, you others will never understand! A man has to have been
through it, in order to know, and that not once, but, as I have, a
hundred times."
"I can well believe it to be a tremendous temptation," said the
Lieutenant-Governor gravely.
"Temptation? It's more than that! A temptation gives you _some_ chance,
doesn't it? You may yield to it, but, at least, you've had your
fighting-chance. Well, in that sense, this is no temptation, though I've
been using the word myself to describe it. Why, John, it's madness,
sheer insanity. You probably remember that I never used to touch alcohol
at all. I promised my poor mother to let it alone until I reached my
majority. Of course, I didn't realize about the dear old man; he died
when I was too young for that. But her one great fear, and naturally,
was that the curse had descended to me--just as it had! Well, I stuck to
my promise till I was twenty-one, and kept along in the same way for
some time afterwards, just because there didn't seem to be any
particularly good reason for taking up something which I had managed to
get along very well without, all my life. Then came that time, you
know--three years ago--and out of mere recklessness, bravado, God knows
what, I began to drink. John, I was a doomed man from the first swallow!
That demon had been hiding inside me, without sound or movement or other
hint of his presence, for twenty-eight years--just waiting his chance!
You know the rest. The fight has been going on ever since, and the thing
has beaten every time. I've resisted. I've struggled. I've even prayed.
It's all useless."
He pointed significantly to the curtain which hung where the door of the
wine-closet had been.
"As I did that night," he continued, "I shall do again, and still again,
until the end. It's insanity, nothing more or less. It lurks at the back
of my brain--always--always--and then, suddenly, when I am least
expecting it, it comes forward with a rush, and I might as well try to
check the north wind or the incoming tide. I feel it tingling in my
fingers, scorching my throat, tearing at my reason. I swear I won't give
in, and, in the very act of so swearing, I get up and go out to meet it.
I could break down iron doors to get at the drink when it calls to me.
And, though I seem to be going straight enough now, the moment is coming
when it _will_ call and when I shall obey! Then you won't want to think
you've ever known me, John Barclay, still less to remember that the name
of the Fairy Princess has passed between us. And, in the midst of my
damnation, it will be a drop of cold water on my tongue to know that
I've left you a loophole through which to escape the acknowledgment of
these last few weeks. So far, no one but the 'Rockingham' people, and
Payson, and--and the Fairy Princess--know that we've been together
recently. The 'Rockingham' people don't even know my name. Payson won't
speak. And _she_ certainly won't. So far, so good. Further, I've come to
say good-by. Hereafter, we mustn't see each other"--
"Stop--stop!" broke in the Lieutenant-Governor. "What is all this rot
you're talking? Chuck it, will you? Look here! If you go back on
me--which is bad--and on your Fairy Princess--which is worse--and on
yourself--which is the worst of all"--
"Yes, yes," answered Cavendish, "that's all true. But I'm not talking
about _if_ I go back, I'm talking about _when_ I go back! As I said when
I began, there's no use trying to explain this thing to a man who
doesn't understand it, and no man _can_ understand it except through his
own experience. In this respect, if in no other, you and I talk
different languages, belong on different planets. Could I expect you to
comprehend with me that first give of self-control which lets the demon
loose, and the meaning of the sight or smell of drink at that exact
moment when the will is weakest--the first glass, hastily swallowed, as
a brute, long thirsty, gulps down the water it has craved--the second
and third, taken more slowly--and then, that slackening of every nerve,
that jettisoning of all the moral cargo, that sudden love and
appreciation of the sensuous side of life? Don't you see? It's another
world, that, which you simply can't understand, unless you travel to it
by the road by which I have come--which God forbid!"
"In all this," said Barclay, "I can see no reason why our present
friendship should not continue, and should not be known."
"Simply this," answered Cavendish: "I'm--nothing! You're the
Lieutenant-Governor,--who is spoken of, if you care to know it, in the
office of the 'Sentinel' as the only honest official in the state of
Alleghenia. You mustn't tie up to me, nor I to you. I've told you what
my end is going to be. You don't believe it, perhaps, but it's none the
less true. And yours--do you know that the law-abiding element looks up
to you as a kind of Messiah? Do you know that you are the dawn of honor
and integrity which lies behind the present black cloud of lawlessness?
I tell you, John, the promise of your future is such as might nerve a
beaten Napoleon to renewed endeavor. In your hands lies the salvation of
the state."
"I wish I could think so," said the Lieutenant-Governor. "God knows I'd
willingly cut one of them off, if I thought its loss could benefit the
commonwealth. But, as I've had occasion to say to others, in the present
emergency I'm as helpless as a babe unborn. You see how things are
going--one might as well appeal, so far as any hope of success is
concerned, to McGrath himself as to Governor Abbott. There's no getting
around it, Spencer. It's a declaration of anarchy pure and simple, and
with the official seal of Alleghenia at the bottom of the document.
Iniquitous wrong is being done, not only to Mr. Rathbawne in refusing
him the protection of the law to which he is entitled, but to the cause
of the strikers themselves, if they can justly be said to have a cause.
Nothing ever was or ever will be gained for the benefit of the many by
the violence of the few. It can only end in one way: by the
interposition of the federal troops. You know what happened at Chicago.
It will be the same thing here; and before it is over we shall see
people shot down like rats in the streets of Kenton City."
"I hope it won't come to that," said Cavendish; "but even so, all's well
that ends well. Provided that order is finally restored"--
"But what credit is it," broke in Barclay, "to the state of Alleghenia
to have her law-breakers suppressed by the national government? Don't
you see that it would be only a final proof that she is too incompetent
or too indifferent to do it herself? From the point of view of the
state's good name, I doubt which is worst, her present attitude or the
interference of federal force."
"Will it come to the latter in any event?"
"Undoubtedly. They've already tried to prevent the delivery of Mr.
Rathbawne's mail, both at the mills and at his house. You know what
that means, don't you? One carrier interfered with in the performance of
his duty is sufficient excuse for mobilizing a brigade."
"But the Governor"--
Barclay came forward, laid his hand on Cavendish's shoulder, and looked
down at him, slowly nodding his head.
"The Governor of Alleghenia is a dyed-in-the-wool scoundrel, my good
sir," he said. "It is his manifest duty to enforce the law rigidly and
at once, and if the police of Kenton City cannot or will not assist him,
to summon the militia to his aid. In that way only can the honor of
Alleghenia be saved. And that is what Elijah Abbott will never do. There
is anarchy open and flagrant in the streets of Kenton City--there is
anarchy silent and sneering in the Governor's chair. God save the
state!"
XI
YOUNG NISBET FINDS HIS TONGUE
"I have promised to marry Colonel Broadcastle," announced Mrs. Wynyard
when the silence had lasted twenty minutes.
Dorothy flung round from the window against which she had been
mercilessly pressing her pretty nose.
"Why, Aunt Helen!" she exclaimed. "You really are the most startlingly
abrupt person I ever knew. Are you in earnest? What under the sun
possessed you to do that?"
"I think it must have been Colonel Broadcastle," answered Mrs. Wynyard,
with an air of reflection. "It was last night when he was showing us
over the armory, after the review. He not only asked me, but appeared to
have quite set his heart upon my giving him an affirmative answer. And
he had been so extremely civil, Dorothy, about our seats and all that,
that I thought it would seem rather ungracious to refuse the first favor
he had ever asked of me. So I said yes."
"Aunt Helen, Aunt Helen! One of these fine days you will be the death of
me. Did any one _ever_ hear of such a reason for accepting a man?"
"I couldn't think of a better one for refusing him," said Mrs. Wynyard
serenely. "So there you are!"
"Talk about logic!" said Dorothy. She came across the room, and seated
herself beside her aunt. "I never heard anything so exciting in my
life!" she added. "Do you really mean it? Are you really going to marry
him?"
"That is the arrangement, as I understand it," replied Mrs. Wynyard. "Of
course, I haven't his promise in writing, but I think I can trust him. I
once looked him up in your father's business guide, and he had three A's
after his name. I'm sure I don't know what they can stand for, if it's
not Acquaintance, Appeal, and Acceptance. I don't really see what else
I could have done. It seems to have all been arranged without consulting
me at all. One can't very well set one's self up in opposition to a
business guide, you know."
"But he's old enough to be your father, Aunt Helen!"
"That's precisely the reason why there wouldn't have been any sense in
my promising to be a sister to him. You see, I was quite helpless in the
matter from start to finish."
"And it was only last night that you called me preposterous!" laughed
Dorothy. "Really, Aunt Helen, people who live in glass houses shouldn't
throw stones. I think you are the most absurd creature in the world. Do
you love him?"
"I can even go so far as to say that I think I do," said Mrs. Wynyard,
without a break in her gravity. "I have all the symptoms,--palpitation
of the heart, a morbid craving for Shelley and chocolate caramels, a
tendency to wake up singing, and a failing for flattening my nose
against the window-pane for twenty minutes at a stretch without saying a
word to my poor old aunt, on the mere chance that he may be coming down
the avenue."
The blush which Dorothy paid as tribute to this subtle innuendo came
near to rivaling one of young Nisbet's celebrated performances in the
same line.
"You're making fun of me," she said reproachfully.
"I, my dear?--not the least in the world. It's all as true as the gospel
according to St. Valentine. I've told you first because we're not only
aunt and niece, but the very best friends possible besides, and I knew
you would like to hear the news before any one else. Colonel Broadcastle
is by all odds the finest man I know,--I won't even except John Barclay,
much as I admire him. He has paid me a very great honor. I respect him
tremendously; I trust him absolutely. These alone are good reasons; but
there's a better one,--so much better that nothing else really has any
bearing on the subject. Can you guess?"
"Yes," said Dorothy softly, "you just love him. Isn't that it?"
"Exactly. It's a curious thing, this love. There may be every reason why
one should marry a man, his own wish included, and yet one doesn't.
There may be no reason at all, so far as outsiders can see, and yet one
does! I've known a woman to throw over one suitor who had everything in
his favor--money, character, position--and accept another who had none
of these advantages--because she liked the way he parted his hair!
That's the way it goes. It's the most illogical thing in the world, if
we except the stock market and other women's gowns. And then, when it's
all arranged, his friends wonder what she could have seen in him, and
her friends what he could have seen in her! But I'm wandering from the
subject. Seriously, Dorothy dear, I love him very sincerely, and I have
been more happy than I can say ever since I found out that it wasn't
going to be one of those one-sided love-affairs which assure the incomes
of the poets and the lawyers. And now,--confidence for confidence,
Dorothy!"
"Aunt Helen! I don't know what you mean."
"Oh, Dorothy! 'I don't know what you mean' is one of those phrases like
'Not at home' and 'Yours very sincerely,' which are white lies on the
face of them. I don't want to force your confidence. We all have what
our friends recognize as our private affairs, with the accent--worse
luck!--on the _pry_! But this is very different. I'm very fond of you,
as you know, and my interest is far from being vulgar curiosity. Of a
woman's five cardinal failings--inquisitiveness, extravagance, vanity,
vacillation, and loquacity--I'm guiltless of all except the last and
most innocent. But don't we all need to talk at times? Don't we all long
for a trustworthy _confidante_? Aren't our little secrets often like
precious liquors?--if we don't make use of them, share them with our
friends, they either ferment and sour, or else lose all their sweetness
and significance by slow evaporation."
"You would draw confidence from a stone," said Dorothy, with a little
smile, "but what have I to tell you?"
"How should I know? Perhaps nothing--as yet; perhaps everything. Take
your time about it, dear. I'm not trying to get you to commit yourself.
I only want you to know that I'm ready to share your secret when it's
ready to be shared, and to help and counsel you in any way I can. I know
the main great fact already. Because, you see, Dorothy, one may conceal
an infinite amount, even from one's nearest and dearest, when they don't
understand--and they are so _apt_ not to understand, one's nearest and
dearest! And the financier may hide his schemes from his partners, or
the general his plan of campaign from his fellow-officers, or the
politician his ambitions from his most ardent supporters--but I doubt,
my dear, if a woman in love was ever able to hide very much from
another woman in the same lamentable condition!
"If it were not," she added, taking Dorothy's hand in hers, "for the
great happiness which has come into my life, do you think that I should
have been able to divine that other great happiness which seems to be
hovering over yours? I am the physician afflicted with the disease which
it becomes his duty to study and to cure. Only, it's not a disease,
Dorothy, but a great, a beautiful revelation. I should have compared
myself, instead, to the prophet who is enabled to interpret the dreams
of others because they are identical with his own. There's my little
speech. And when you are prepared to answer it, you'll find me ready."
As she was speaking the last words, the butler flung back the curtains
at the doorway of the drawing-room.
"Mr. Nisbet," he announced imperturbably.
Dorothy looked at her aunt, and then, with her frank laugh:--
"If there _is_ an answer," she said, "that's it!"
As young Nisbet entered, Mrs. Wynyard was the first to greet him.
"So," she observed, looking him over approvingly, "you've beaten your
swords into walking-sticks, and your spears into top-hats, as my friend
Isaiah so aptly observes! That's very commendable, but I almost think I
like you better in your war-paint. Do you know, a Colonel's orderly is
the spickest-and-spanest object upon which I've ever laid, or hope to
lay, my eyes?"
"He just naturally has to be," said young Nisbet, with a grin. Somehow,
he was always more at his ease with Mrs. Wynyard than with other women.
"You see," he added, "if it wasn't that way, he wouldn't be it."
Which was as near as he had ever come to making an epigram.
"Well, I shall leave you to the tender mercies of Dorothy," said Mrs.
Wynyard. "I've promised to take a walk with your--what is it you call
him--instead of commanding officer, you know?"
"K. O.," said young Nisbet.